The New Cold War (TMR au)
by camxand
Summary: Instead of finding a cure for the flare, the world needs to find a new source of energy. But what they didn't know was, good intention can be corrupted with the overwhelming idea of power. Power can get the best of people, even the good one. Was Thomas and his friends were working with the good, the bad, or the corrupted?
1. Arrival

Day 3820.

It had been decades since the world had been stable. Sources of energy were continuing to be depleted, and new energy sources haven't been found yet.

Alternative energy like solar power or hydropower didn't give any countries a bump. It was practically useless, as the earth was in a state of frozen, creating an effect called _snowball earth_. Of course, they had sun every now but it only kept them warm for 60 days a year.

Canada, one of the impacted country, had to stay without power most of the year. Their citizen only exposed to energy for every once a week.

Fossil fuel… coal… gas…. where did they go? where can they find them? No, the correct question would be, how can they find it? Who can find it?

Of course, the energy company knew the answer.

Even Thomas knew the answer.

So it begins, the longest winter that he will ever know.

There was an ache in his heart, an echo of anger in his head.

"shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!" he roared

"you're not mum, stop acting like one!" he pushed him backwards and before he could swung his hand forward, Thomas had already caught his little brother's hand. He was almost as tall as him, though he was more skinnier and weaker.

"don't," Thomas said under his breath, trying so hard to not be drowned into his anger. His head was filled with hatred but his heart was still echoed with love. It aches for one, too. His brother didn't say much, he was panting hard trying to break him, but he couldn't. Finally, he let go and swore at him,

"Fuck you Thomas. FUCK YOU!"

He didn't want to remember. But it keeps coming back, slowly creeping into his mind. So how did he get there? Far away from his own nature? Drowning in the deep water that soon suffocates his warmth. He was beginning to lose his conscious, his skin became paler, and his blood begin to froze. If only there were more peace beneath the water, he would've jumped out and swam back to shore. But he didn't. He let himself drown into the deep blue ocean with nothing but his thin skin that covered him. He wasn't hoping to be saved. He was hoping that his lung could just collapsed, veins shorten, and oxygen in his body to be depleted. His lips begin to turned blue and his mind begin to shut. Slowly.

It was a familiar state.

Like a blizzard that happened earlier in the year.

"yo, _americanidiot!_ you forgot something!" he tossed up his left leg and swung his right arm to made a contact with Thomas' face. Thomas's face soon kissed the concrete, but he stood up quickly, letting the fresh blood gushed through his lips. He didn't want to get into trouble so he decided to ignore them. But it didn't stop them, it only made them go wilder,

"Oh sorry there, didn't see you, _americanpschyo,"_ he grabbed him by his collar and swung him to the wall, but luckily someone rushed towards them and grab Thomas by his arm, dragging him away from the bully,"Fuck off Columbus! If you don't, you know what I will do," she winked.

"You won't stop blackmailing me for that, huh? You're lucky this time. Next time-"

"There will be no next time," she rushed him over, and dragged Thomas away from him. They were walking towards and Thomas couldn't help but wonder, why was this girl so nice to him? Ever since he moved up to Canada no one else had bother to spoke with him let alone be his friends. She was the only one who constantly pushed him to socialise. It had been one year or so, even though Thomas kept avoiding her, she always finds a way to talk to him, pulling him out of the darkness.

"Geez, why are they so mean to you?"

"Why are you so nice to me," Thomas asked her in a mocking tone.

She laughed, but he didn't. She rolled her eyes, and said, "because I'm human, unlike those Snaky slintheads. Come sit with me and my friends? Please? This is like the hundredth time I asked."

He didn't put any fight when she dragged him by the arm, leading him to the cafeteria and finally to a table where her friends were sitting.

"woooa woaaa guys GUYS, Teresa brought the _americanpsch_ -"

"Minho, behave!"

"Sorry, I'm just joking."

"Thomas, this is Newt and that asshole over there is Minho."

A moment later, a metal tray slammed towards the table,

"I had a pop quiz. ON. THE. FIRST. DAY."

"Let me guess, Mr. Jorge?"

"Yeah and it was-" he glanced at Thomas and stop and started to introduce himself as "Frypan". He then continued to ramble about how Mr. Jorge had been a slinthead and how he was not making a good impression on the first day and blablabla. That kid can go on and on about that teacher, he must've really hated that guy. Frypan was quiet a big guy, he had this army cut and a round chubby face. After awhile it was just mainly Minho and Frypan making a joke. Everyone would laugh except Thomas.

"Oi champ, cheer up will ya? stop being so depressing all the time. eat up man!" He didn't swallowed his food, Thomas was scared to death that it might killed him, but Minho continued anyway "Like, eat a bacon man - bacon is happiness. You will feel happy, trust me."

Everyone except Thomas chuckled a bit.

Then an deep voice roared into the table, "The heck you're talking about, Minho? Don't scared the new guy," it was Newt. He had this thick british accent and a voice that cracked every now and then, which was odd because he was practically a _young adult,_ all the guys in the school already had a stable voice. _Maybe he was a late bloomer_ , he thought.

"Bacon taste like heaven, heaven is a beautiful place, beautiful place makes you happy, therefore bacon is happiness! Any who, what do you do Thomas?"

"Sorry?"

"As in, what major are you in? I'm a surveyor, Frypan is in refining, Newt is a legend like you would've guessed, cause he's an engineering major like Teresa. You don't see a lot of girl in that department - that girl is mad, she's bloody mad I tell ya, fucken genius." he didn't stop to chew but rather, keep pushing in more food into his mouth and keep yanking about how brilliant Teresa was. Yes, the school that Thomas went was rather odd, it had two divisions and each division had its own building. One was called "Innovation" and the other one was "Preservation", in which they are all in the later division. Sure, for some subjects they shared classes between divisions, but that was only for the _regular_ subject. The regular subject was only English, History and Geography. What made the division different was the fact that "Preservation" was all about fossil fuel whereas "Innovation" was about new energy. There were five major in the preservation division: engineering, surveying, exploration, refining, and drilling.

Thomas' mind was starting to drift away, but luckily Minho threw the dice back to him before he could do so.

"I'm an exploration major"

"No shit, man." His dark brown eyed widen, it almost looked like that it was pitched black instead "That's cool!"

"yeah, our boy Minho here wanted to be an explorer too," Frypain said

"-but he couldn't swim," she laughed.

"Ah! yes I flunked the swimming test and got 'kicked out' to surveying major. It's all good. Cause it's like exploration major, but on land, we don't have to go deep dive and all"

"keep telling yourself that, Minho, it's ok," she teases him

"It's true!"

She rolled her eyes with a little smirk on her face. She was right but there was no use arguing with him - especially about his major. _Make the boy happy for a little while, it doesn't hurt anyone_ , she thought.

Thomas liked them. He felt a little awkward but he liked those people, there were something about them that made him want to sit every lunch with them.

"you know Thomas I wanted to be an explorer too"

"Newt, you can be. You can be Newt the explorer, like Dora but instead it's Newt - where are we going clapclapclap!"

"I don't know if I want to laugh because I feel pity for you or because I thought that was one of the shittiest joke that you ever created," Teresa was a little bit sarcastic. It wasn't clear if that was her default setting to everyone or it was just toward Minho, either way Thomas still enjoyed her sassy comment.

"At least I'm a better swimmer than you," Newt murmured

"Well why didn't you, Newt?" Thomas asked

he snotted, "Asthma."


	2. Explore

This what Thomas understood so far: when it comes to finding petroleum sources, new discoveries becoming less frequent and smaller. Reserves becoming unconventional and moving into controversial, delicate areas.

Finding new petroleum source in controversial areas meant waking up earlier to go the field. In the windless dusk in a small city somewhere in Northwest territories of Canada, just about 200 km north of the Arctic Circle, Wicked Tech students was already wide awake, breathing some fresh air. It was fairly cold, but they seemed to adapt to it.

They were standing outside the school ground, with diving equipment all loaded up at the back of the bus. The route was to dive into the creek and explore its cave system. It was fairly a long journey and none of them was excited.

It was only a practice dive to prepare them for the real expedition, but they had to map their route as well. It was a heavy and dangerous task; anything could happen from nitrogen narcosis (they called it "rapture of the deep", its has a similar effect to alcohol intoxication), decompression sickness (they called it "bends", creating several physical problems), to oxygen toxicity. Simply, if there's a physical or equipment problem, there will be no quick way to the surface. By being 217 ft -or more- underwater meant they had to be prepared, physically and mentally.

Their school was just off from Dempster highway and was built around a lake called Shell Lake. The Innovation Divison's building was on the west side while the Preservation Division's building was on the east side and was connected to an office by a bridge. The small creek, however, was at the opposite of the Innovation division building, just a couple of hike away from the shell lake. Though to get to the creek they had to walk from the office. Thomas have never had the chance to cave-dive. He was pretty excited, there was a fuel of energy bursting inside of him. His eyes were already awake, wider than everyone else. He squinted his eyes, trying to see the creek from distant. It may seem odd, how a small creek can be used for deep diving. The thing was, the leafy looking pond was not shallow, it was actually a very deep sinkhole to one of many portals of an unexplored cave system.

When they finally reached there, the small group of people made a quick assembly.

"Alright guys, this is it. You may change and I will pair you up, each pair will leave with a 15 minutes gap. Don't forget your seismic and router!"

There were only eight students including Thomas. Most of them were guys and there were only two girls. In front of Thomas, with her shiny pink jacket was Inge. She was a danish girl with a golden curly hair and freckles across her face. Thomas thought she was quite attractive though everyone would disagree with Thomas and would say that Marie was the better looking one. Marie was Inge's best friend. They literarily spent everything together like they were twins. Rumour has it that even when Marie had a date, Inge tagged along... of course, it ended up being a double date. Marie had a strawberry blonde hair that falls down to her shoulder. She had a body of a model and the face of an actress. It was kind of funny seeing her in exploration major, she was a pretty girl, everything she did - she does it gracefully. Thomas still can't imagine Marie up in the sun, being friendly with the dirt and mud.

Marie had a twin brother. It was uncanny how similar they looked. Though Mark had a short hair and a stronger and rougher face structure. Standing next to Mark was Pascal. Pascal was a french guy that had a crush on Marie though Mark seemed to disprove it. Pascal had a terrible balance on land, but he's more natural in the water. Pascal was a tall guy with a broad shoulder and a hooked nose. Thomas was glad that he had been paired up with him because he was a swimmer. A strong distance swimmer with a lung capacity of a fish, to be precise. Not only that, Pascal was a nice kid. They weren't necessarily friends, but they talked every now and then, which makes his classes less painful.

Two of his classmate in black atmospheric diving suit had hunch hip to hip, trying to avoid the tunnel above the creek. The first one to dive were Ben and Zart. It was kind of odd seeing them without Ernest as they were like the three musketeers of exploration major. They were really good and talented, it seemed like they were made for it.

Seeing them off to the water only made him more eager. Thomas didn't even consider the best path down, as he was already rushing. He spun on his heel and ignore the stairs that lead to the lower ground. Thomas dropped to his chest and hunched over to the steepest edge of the escarpment. It wasn't that sharp so he jumped. He managed to land on his feet, but his fins were chafing his ankle bones. He pulled them a little and pulled his slouchy socks back up, and adjust his feet to its more comfortable position.

Thomas and Pascal were on the last waves. The creek was surrounded by trees, ruts and rocks. It was a luscious green view with a little open space that looked like a clearing area. Thomas sat on one of the rock and began playing with the water. When it came to his time, he jumped straight out to the creek, but only to be stopped by professor Florence,

"Thomas, you forgot your rebreathers!" She yelled out,

Thomas seized it off from her, leapt, and dove into the water.

It was a pretty smooth ride, with an occasion current pulling him backwards. The karst emerged from the ceiling and tightly surrounded Thomas as an impenetrable wall swaying over his head. A seismic survey was on Thomas's hand while Pascal had the router, showing them the way. A seismic survey was a device that can build up pictures of rock layers by sound waves. Simply speaking, it picked up where the oils were. Usually, this kind of activity uses ships instead of deep diving. However, they tried to do it above the surface and couldn't pick up anything due to weird interference. So the school decided to put the students into a deep diving expedition.

Deeper into the cave and into a side tunnel, about half a kilometre from the entrance, the walls began to tighten and they began to crawl with Pascal being in front of Thomas. Thomas liked it so far, he liked finding his way inside this beautiful cave that were filled with water. There were cracks and all, an opening for unexplored territory. It was pretty dark. Suddenly, a quick change in the current dragged Thomas away. It felt like something was pulling his legs. It drew him away from Pascal, suffocating his body with the brown tight walls around him. He saw Pascal was beginning to distant from him. He tried to catch up to him, but he couldn't, the current were too strong. When Pascal looked back, Thomas was gone. He spun his body and begin to swim back, looking for Thomas. He fasten his crawl, kicked in some water and tighten his eyes, looking for any sign of living. After an hour of swimming back and forth, Pascal decided to swim back to the surface. But once he reached the surface, everyone was gone.

Thomas, on the other hand, was still fighting for his life. The current had stopped dragging him, but he didn't know where he was. It was impossible to find a way out without the router, especially when the place looked unfamiliar. His hand twitched every now and then, touching the walls that were too close to him. It was dark and the torch on his head didn't help at all. His heart began to race. It felt like sweat was dripping from his face. He finally saw some cracks, familiar one, it leads to an arch of an opening and when he swam passed it, the space around him began to loosen up. He saw a light above him, and his heart began to slowed down.

Pascal had waited more than two hours until a bubble snapped him from his worried. That was when Thomas slowly emerged from the water. He opened his mask, showing his pale face and blue lips. His muscles tensed and twitch and his head hurt so bad that he didn't even manage to walk straight. Thomas tripped and landed flat on his back. Pascal immediate rushed to him and cried out for help. Luckily, they manage to reach the hospital just in time. Pascal shriek and swore at the staff, telling them that they were abandoned. However, the staff told him that the school must've missed them or something. He knew they were lying. But Pascal's protest for truth gave him a week of suspension.

It was perhaps 4 am in the morning when Thomas' phone suddenly rang.

"Hello, Hutton residence, Thomas speaking" Thomas muttered, half asleep.

"Hey Thomas, it's Pascal" the other line spoke

"Pascal! Hey man how are you, haven't seen you in ages!"

"Yeah.. yeah... sorry about that." he said. None of them said anything else after that. The silence lingered until it echoed. Pascal didn't want to extend it, so he went straight away,

"Thomas, listen... listen man. I'm transferring to a school in British Columbia."

"Why?" Thomas heart sunken a bit. He was the only friend that he had inside the exploration class. He didn't really talked to anyone else except him.

"Look, I can't explain" he paused before taking a deep breath and continued, "but you have to trust me on this: don't trust any of this shuck face, especially the school teacher and staff. Not even the hospital staff. I can't say much, but I'm leaving soon."

"Where are you know?"

"I'm at the airport. Sorry I hadn't told you earlier man, but my parents were furious when they found out I was suspended. Spent the entire week finding a new school. They want me to move out. Sorry man. I'm boarding now, good bye Thomas"

"Bye Pascal"

With that Thomas hung up his phone and went back to sleep. But he couldn't, his brain won't let him sleep and his eyes won't shut. He agreed with Pascal, he didn't trust anyone, especially people at his school. Not the students, not the staff, not even the teachers. Of course, deep down he knew one person that he trusted. The person that saved him from the dark. The person that picked him up out of the corner, when everyone else was picking on him. That person was Barnett. Teresa Barnett.


	3. Bonfire

His legs were burning, lungs were aching and he could feel his heart were pumping loudly. He clenched his teeth that reveal his chiselled jawline, as he tried to focus on the road instead of the taunting muscle around his knee. He inhaled deeply, trying to ease the numbness of every fracture that he had on his body; hoping that it would eventually go away. The mystifying colours of the Friday night-lights that shone into the street made the road look a little dark and dismal than he could remember. But he knew a lot of things that remained the same. He shivered as he blew a light breath over the thin air. One of Thomas favourite hobby was running, especially in colder days when all the water had frozen up. It was the simplest and cheapest getaway for him. He was perhaps been running for more than half an hour and didn't intend to stop. Until she saw a girl.

The square looking building was covered by giant windows, there was an ocean of people, but Thomas somehow could spot Teresa easily. He stop and stood outside of the building, hands fidgeting his dark blue cap that cover his short black hair. His running glasses that were supposed to cover his deep brown eyes were now hung off by his shirt. Teresa had been Thomas neighbour for almost a year. He didn't even knew her existence until earlier this year. He didn't even knew the colour of her hair, sometimes it looked brunette, sometimes it looked black, and sometimes it looked dark brown. Thomas might've known Teresa for a short period of time, but her posture gave it all away.

Thomas somehow entered the building and stood still, watching her kicking and punching and jumping. She was practicing some kind of martial arts though it looked like she was dancing rather than fighting.

His gaze finally met hers. He could see that her light freckled face was bright pink from the workout though her lips were somehow still dry.

She smiled at him and leaned forward, grabbing Thomas by the shoulder as she pressed herself gently to his body, "thank God you're alright, Tom! it's been ages since I saw you!" she let herself go and wiped the sweat from her face, "what happened? and uh - oh, sorry," she slyly smiled.

"It was nothing, really. And yeah it's ok, I'm sweating too" he laughed, trying to hide the fact that he was nervous.

"Hey Tom, I'm almost done, wanna walk together?"

"Uh sure. But I think it will be alright if you walked alone, I mean... no guys will want to mess with you," he smirked, pulling a little teasing face at her.

"Thomas, you are my neighbour,"

 _Of course_ , he thought _._ He almost completely forgot the fact that in this small city, where everyone knows everyone, chance were, the girl that you were crushing on, was your neighbour. It was either a curse or a blessing, Thomas still couldn't decide.

Subsequently Thomas took her to a long walk. They had been detouring and walking in circles though neither Thomas or Teresa seemed to mind. They were talking about anything and everything. From distant, one would have guessed that they knew each other since they were born.

After awhile they finally pulled over and walked towards their small neighbourhoods. There were only five houses on their driveway, with Thomas' at the very end of the road. When he was about to leave to his house, Teresa called him back,

"Come see movies with me?"

"What?"

"Yeah, the boys and me are watching a midnight movie. Come with me,"

"He'll come with you!" someone from inside the house shouted. His voice sounded like it hasn't cracked yet.

"LIKE DEFINITELY" another voice echoed though this time his voice was a little deeper.

Thomas turned to his back and saw his brothers were watching them through their house window. "Those little munchkins," he spat under his breath.

"Guess see you tonight then tom," she smiled

When Thomas turned to Teresa, he couldn't pull a normal smile. Instead, his mouth was sloping up on one side and he felt that heat flood his chest and his face was probably red. Teresa laughed a bit as Thomas awkwardly waved at her. Once Teresa was gone, he ran towards his house, slammed the door and stomped every inch of their house with his metal foot.

"CHUCCCCK ARISSSSS WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU GUYS"

"Yep he's mad," chuck giggled

Chuck was the youngest in the Hutton family. He had curly brown hair and chubby cheeks. Both him and his other brother, Aris, who was one year younger than Thomas was playing video games in Aris' room. When Thomas chimed into the room, he was surprised that none of his brothers were hiding from him.

"You should thank us," his brother Aris said, eyes were still locked to the television in front of him.

"For what? embarrassing myself?" he yanked his face and collapsed on the bed, putting his hands on his face.

His brother paused the game and turned his head towards Thomas. He sighed, "We all know that you-" but before he could finish his words, Thomas jumped strangled him. His brother didn't put any fight, instead, he laughed.

"Yeah well what about you and that girl? What was her name? Ratchet?" Thomas finally let go of his little brother and sat on the bed, watching them playing.

"Rachel!" Aris threw one of the pillows to Thomas.

"Same thing,"

"We're good, taking her to the movie tomorrow. Wanna come?"

"I don't want to babysit you,"

"Nah you won't. It would be a double date," he smirked

"I don't have-" his eyes widen, "No!" he said as he lightly punched Aris by the arm.

"Heeeeyy how come you aren't asking me about girls," his youngest brother cried. He felt like he was left out from the conversation.

"Because, Chuckie, you are still a baby!"

"I'm twelve!" he snorted, "Well... at least, I get some lollipop, unlike you only stare and drool."

It felt like something had kicked Thomas' in the stomach. He was frozen. Was it _that_ obvious?

Both of his brothers laughed, "Yeah you think we haven't noticed?" Aris said.

"Oh shut up you two!"

He stood up and left them alone playing whatever games they were playing. Thomas got to his room and dropped himself to the bed. He closed his eye but there was faint tapping on the window, about three times. tap, tap, tap. He looked out and was surprised that it was Teresa, she'd been throwing rocks at his window. She then gestured him to open it, and so he did.

"Get ready, we are going in five!" she was half screaming from the other side and disappeared. He pushed himself towards his wardrobe and pulled up new and freshly washed t-shirt and jeans. A moment later, the door bell rang.

"I'll get it!" Chuck yelled,

"NO CHUCK WAIT,"

Thomas rushed and almost tripped himself on the stairs. He was too late, his little brother were already in front of the door, greeting someone.

"Oh, hello, you must be Thomas girlfri-"

"Hey Teresa, what's up" Thomas stuffed his brother mouth with his hand. But Chuck bit Thomas' fingers and let the last word echoed, "-friend" and ran away.

She laughed. "Your brother seem lovely"

"Oh yeah, they are the worst"

"They?"

"Yeah, I have two younger brothers. Aris is fifteen and he goes to this computer school and Chuck is twelve. The annoying kid that opened the door just now was Chuck. I have an older sister too. Her name is Brenda and she's back in America. She's in uni at the moment."

"Wow, big family"

"Yeah,"

"Yeah," he repeated his word, "You have any siblings Teresa?"

There was a beat. Teresa looked down on her shoes. Her face didn't glow as bright as before, but she gave him a smile and shook her head.

Minho's place, at least from the outside, didn't seem much. The building itself wasn't big though its backyard was huge and was surrounded by this fern looking gate. However, when they went inside, the single building took them underground, to a bigger space. It was uncanny how the building works, it was four stories underground and was bigger than a football stadium. The inside was decorated in a very cozy, squishy, vintage sorta style. Furnishing were quite old, but it looked like it had stories to tell.

"Welcome to the glade, newbie." Minho opened his arm, welcoming Thomas. "My folks are usually busy, so we have the house to ourself!"

"Which reminds me Minho, can we change the date for next month's midnight movie?"

"What? Why? It's our tradition - The Midnight Movies at Minho's is always at the end of the month?"

"Yeah, but Marck asked me to go with him to the senior ball, and I said yes"

Thomas' ears dropped. He didn't know Marck, but he begin to dislike him.

"Marck!? Never heard of anyone named Marck before?" Minho spoke, frowning.

"You know Marck, you play football with him, Lamarck Arlington."

"Oh. Lame-marck." he rolled his eyes.

"Minho!"

"What? that's his name, right? uh-oh, reckon it's alright, we got this shuck face to entertain us. He can replace you for a day. Like he can represent the both of you" Minho pointed at Thomas.

"You are so mean," Teresa said.

Minho shrugged.

Minho didn't want something sad or scary so they watched a movie called _Friday Night Lights._ Though in the end, he shed a little tear. As the night grew colder, they huddle up near the bonfire just outside Minho's place. The dark blue sky above them were painted with neon-green-light streaks, it made it looks like a beautiful painting that belong in an expensive gallery. After awhile they decided to just hang around until the sunrise. Minho, of course, suggested that they all play a game called "Truth or Dare".

"Yeah well why not," Newt said.

Minho placed an empty bottle in the middle and begin to spin it. Thomas was praying for his dear life that the bottle would never point towards him, and when it finally stopped, it pointed towards Teresa.

"Ah, Teresa - Truth or Dare!?"

"Truth," she calmly said, without blinking.

"Do you like anyone in this room," Minho asked, smiling.

Teresa didn't say anything.

"Well?" Minho playfully raised his eyebrows.

She nodded, and swore under her breath "Minho, I hate you."

Thomas couldn't help but kept wondering. Was there anything between Minho and Teresa? Or could it be Newt? No, he could've sworn that Minho were with Teresa, the way they looked at each other... they way Teresa can be so relaxed around him... all these thought made Thomas's head hurts, his stomach was started to fill up with jealousy. He didn't know what to do, he didn't like seeing them together, but they were his friends. He finally had friends. So he tried to contain himself - to not storm off, to let it flow, and be cool with it. He force-shut his teeth together and pulled a little smile, but then the bottle stopped and it pointed towards Thomas.

"Shit," his smile faded and his words slowly echoed in his head.

"Alright, Thomas... Truth or Dare?" Teresa said.

"Tru-" Thomas saw Minho smiling. That cheeky smile of him, he was thinking of something, something that would require Thomas admits something he didn't want to, yet. He finally cut his thought and said, "-Dare, I pick dare."

Newt and Minho looked at each other, then they both opened up their mouth - almost instantaneously, "Alright Thomas,"

In that moment, Thomas regretted his decision.

Either way, he was trapped.

 _Dear Lord help me_ , he thought.

"-I dare you to kiss Teresa," Newt winked.


End file.
